Video game music exists in a category that is an oddity among the likes of other music compositions. While there are vocals in select tracks of video game music, the majority of them have them take a secondary role, with the music remaining in the dominant position. This sharply contrasts the mainstream music industry where the pride is in the singer and not the music. However, unlike classical, orchestrated music, video game music is not constrained by instruments, length or traditional elements. The combination of these elements proves surprisingly effective because it is able to take the music and run with it in nearly every direction.
This is as close to math as we are going to get, I swear.
When we listen to most kinds of music, there is a form of progression that the music tends to follow, video game music being of no exception. The music will start by rising in the introduction before moving on to the center movement where the music plateaus before finally riding the chorus back down to begin again. Excluding some of the more unorthodox tracks, this progression provides video game music with a limit to how it defines itself, especially since the music has to loop. The loop though, the loop- that is what makes this music so unorthodox. One of the ways the music can mask itself and add another element to the music is to force you to lose yourself in the tempo as it replays over and over again.
Hard to keep up with this music isn’t it? The loops provide it with a very novel way to utilize the limits to its advantage, by masking the point where the loop ends and creating a seemingly chaotic tune.
The legends arise again
Like all great classics, homages and remixes are expected throughout the life of a popular and iconic song. For video game music, reviving old tunes are a universal practice, especially without the limitations of copyrights and public domain. This allows tunes to be reused almost consistently (with only minor changes). This is generally why we can have so many different official remixes of a song and still consider them all official adaptations.
Other companies can take this process quite a step further and both revive and rewrite the music to essentially evolve the music. This can take place over time with few changes, to being rewritten almost completely from the ground up with respect to the original. This change also reflects the growth of the theme that it inspires because while it preserves the theme, the remix is meant to represent it according to its current image.
As you should be able to tell, the notes of the track has been preserved to an extent, but in this case, the track has been rewritten to accommodate the newer adaptation.
By Nelde
And each of these new adaptations can be very different in practice than the last.
But ignoring cross generation music, we can have these remixes show up anywhere, even in the same game if the circumstances favor them. All one has to do is to take the track and give it a few minor changes and it will be a completely different track. All it takes is a little imagination and the right circumstances. The limits that video game music has on itself is only limiting if it remains formulaic. But with the constantly changing environment of video games, innovation remains its strongest point.
The Digital Orchestra 